Butt out!

Here we go again.

I am seldom surprised when I hear male objectification of black women anymore. It’s a shame. I thought by the time I had daughters and sons (I have two of the former and one of the latter) that objectification would be a thing of the past.

Alas here comes Jim Sensenbrenner. Never heard of Jim? Me neither. I’m usually really interested in the people in the congress, but I’ve been having this thing about Wisconsin, so he went under my radar. Jim Sensenbrenner is a Republican congressman from Wisconsin. Apparently he has a problem with derrieres. In fact he has a problem with a certain woman’s derriere…Michelle Obama.

In an apparent slip he was overheard on a cellphone telling someone“She [the FLOTUS] lectures us on eating right while she has a large posterior herself.”

Really Jim? Really?

I’ll do some objectifying myself…Jim, you’re not exactly sporting a six pack either. In fact, you're a big guy. I'm sure your booty is a little larger than Alex Rodriguez's...but I digress. See the pictures below, the middle picture is my favorite).

He’s probably not the person to talk about anyone’s butt, but he is a white man in a position of power and as such, I’m sure he feels entitled to voice his opinion on anyone’s butt anytime he wants to.

I’m not friends with Mrs. Obama, but I do know a little bit about her. Here are the facts as I know them:

· She is not a size 4, but she is also 5’ 11”.

· She works out RELIGIOUSLY every morning at 4:30a.

· She eats healthy most days.

· She likes to shop in Target (A woman after my own heart!)

· She works out RELIGIOUSLY every morning at 4:30a!

Michelle Obama is probably the most physically fit first lady since Jacqueline Kennedy. She’s one of the youngest, and she has had two children and she’s in her late 40s. She is a role model for children especially young girls on how to take care of yourself and not conform to the twisted and outlandish body forms that now dominate the fashion scene. We’re not all Kate and Pippa. Yet it is obvious that men are the creators and commentators of the body ethic in this country, to which Mrs. Obama is not a member. For that matter neither are 95 percent of the women in America.

While many see Jim’s statement as purely a slip up, or at worst a sexist faux pas, I see it as a statement that harks back to the time that Massa looked over his slave women as cattle before he sold them. Many women of color have had their bodies objectified for gain by white men (and by men of color as well). I use the word “gain” in a very, very broad sense. I think of gain as telling a very bad joke about black women’s bodies to using a black woman’s body to continue the partisan vitriol that has become the standard for the 2012 political season.

For many the “faux pas” is simple. He made a mistake and then he wrote a message to the first lady, apology “acknowledged”. But he’s done much more. He has shown he is not educated. I know, I know, education has gotten a bum rap lately. Liberal education has become passé and should be avoided at all costs. But Jim needs a refresher. If only to show to his constituents that he may not be smart but he can be taught new tricks.

I’ve even picked out his first class, Black Feminist Politics. When he does take the class, I’m sure one of the first images he’ll see is of Sarah Baartman also known as the Hottentot Venus.

Sarah Baartman was paraded as a joke, and a freak in Europe in the 18^th century. She was taken from her home with promises of a better life for herself and her family. Instead she was put on display for white Europeans to ogle, and stare at with disgust. Her body was probed and prodded by “scientists” who believed that black women’s bodies were exotic and expendable. Her buttocks and labia were shown to audiences, while modesty and the word lady were denied to her. Her buttocks were advertised as grotesque reminders to European women as what could happen to them if they were sexually promiscuous. After exposure to smallpox she died a young woman. After her death her skeleton, genitals, and brain were put on display by the scientists that exploited her during her life.

The life and times of Sarah Baartman was the first thing I thought of when I heard about Jim. At first I thought I was going too far, but I don’t think so. The first lady deserves respect. I don’t remember anyone talking about Barbara Bush’s behind, or Lady Bird Johnson, or Mamie Eisenhower. But for this first lady her body has become a source of ridicule and a free for all to malign and put on display at their whim.

The first lady is no joke. She is a person whose body is her own and whose beauty is embraced by many, many women and men (I’m sure to the surprise of Jim).

Maybe he would get it, if he became the BUTT of the joke.

Why I'm not going to see "For Colored Girls...

my love is too saturday nite to have thrown back in my face- lady in orange

In the early seventies, my mother's first cousin Leon stayed with us. I adored him. I followed him and hung on his every word. He was 33 and I was 5. When he left, he endowed my mother with his book collection, and I was blessed to know books like Ann Moody's Coming of Age in Mississippi, Black Like Me, the Miseducation of the Negro, and the selected speeches of Malcolm X.

But there was one book that was unlike the others, it was shiny and new. It had what the other books didn't,a beautiful black woman on the cover. She was wearing a scarf looking defiant, scared, and yet hopeful. Her body poised to run from something bad, or to chase something good. I didn't know it then, but this book would be a compass in my life and beacon to my real passion...writing.

Of course I couldn't read it yet. I was 5, and as the years progressed, the book was put higher and higher on the bookshelf out of my reach. My mom didn't want me to know about the pain and disaster that some women endured at the hands of others. Until finally at 12, my mother had run out of patience and bookshelf, I was able to read For Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide when the Rainbow wasn't Enuf. It was a marvel. It was poem of women, who looked and sounded like the women I knew, creating themselves into super women who were more than mere domestic definitions. They were like the characters in the Matrix, having taken the redpill and were now able to "see" what their true destinies should and would become.These "Colored women" became my heroes. I never spoke about them to others, but the book was never far from me.

I would wonder, "Would I be the woman in red someday? Holding out my hand while my life fell from a window ledge? Or woman in green who held onta her stuff? Or the lady in brown who got to say the last word... who would I be? For 36 years I have had this book in my heart if not in my purse/book bag/or diaper bag. For 36 years the faces of the "colored" women have been mine, in pain, in happiness, and in life. I go back to those women for strength and for guidance.

There's been a lot of resistance against the movie from Black Men. I can definitely understand it. But I hope Black men don't confuse the movie with the poem, and put poem into the chronological and historical perspective it deserves. This poem was written in 1975. The women's movement was in full swing, the civil rights and black power movements had ended, but their legacy was moving into academia where Black history courses were becoming forceful entities in colleges and universities in the country.

The question you have to ask yourself is, "Where is the Black Woman at this time?" Disenfranchised by the women's movement, and disillusioned by the outcome of the Civil Rights Movement, many black women turn to the arts to show that they have issues and ideas that neither movement is recognizing nor dealing with. This work (and work of many other iconic African American women authors) comes from that legacy.

Does the movie translate into a 21st century ideal? Maybe and maybe not. Maybe because black women are still dealing with some of the same issues, poor education choices, domestic abuse, sexual assault. Maybe not, because ironically black women are earning more and going to college more than they ever have. But if Tyler Perry's adaptation is wrong, when will someone write a screenplay that is right? When will our community support it?

I'm not sure when, but in the meantime I won't be one of the people who go to see "For Colored Girls...." I applaud all that do, and those that will get the chance to be touched by this movie and create their own rainbows. But my rainbows are in my head, and I like them that way.

But if you're really interested in a life changing experience....read the book.

Fear of a Smart Black woman

This morning's New York Times has a commentary from Maureen Dowd entitled, " Feliz Cumpleanos, and Adios". The article is in reference to Michelle Obama going to Spain for a holiday with her friends and their daughters.

The criticism of Mrs. Obama has been steady for the last week regarding her vacation. Some news organizations have seen her as a vacation grubbing first lady, going on as many as 7 vacations since she's lived in the White House. Others (like Ms. Dowd) have seen her as anti-marriage this week because she wasn't with her husband for his 49th birthday. Others have suggested that she is a bad mother because her oldest daughter Malia was a camp while Sasha was home. While supporters of Mrs. Obama have been many, not many of them have been White women.

It's an interesting conundrum. I remember President Obama's presidential campaign. Geraldine Ferraro, and Gloria Steinem were livid that Mr. Obama was tangling with Hillary Clinton in a way that suggested patriarchal superiority. That it was politically expedient to love Barack Obama, but not Hillary Clinton. I believe the part of their argument was right. What wasn't right and what so many feminists refuse to acknowledge is the idea of privilege that White women share in this country. My favorite essay on this is White Privilege by Peggy McIntosh. She writes, "White Privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks."

This is a knapsack that Laura Bush was able to carry in her 8 years in White House. A 8 year tenure in which her agenda as the "literacy first lady" was carried out in bits and drabs while she was in the "second" white house in Texas. As First Lady she offered a half apology for ordering ornate and ostentatious china while her husband started two wars, but could not send it back since it had already been set. No one went to her alma mater and found her senior dissertation, dissected it and determined that she hated Black People. In fact, it wasn't until well into her second term as First Lady that anyone really brought up the fact that she had killed someone. Yet, Michelle Obama goes on a trip to Spain and all hell breaks loose.

During the Presidential campaign there was such intense scrutiny on Mrs. Obama, that if the camera got any closer to her face you would have seen her skin cells. Her clothes were picked apart. Why didn't she wear American designers? Is she too good for Michael Kors or Ralph Lauren? (She wore a Michael Kors dress for her official photograph). The infamous statement on how she was finally proud of her country, led McCain's wife to profess how she was always proud of "her" country. Trying to negate Michelle's Americaness while showing the "folks"see, told you they don't love their country. And of course who could forget the fist bump, and the senior dissertation that landed her on the cover of the New Yorker as an Angela Davis afro wearing, black panther who hated all white people.

The scrutiny continues. When she came to the White House she told the press she wanted to be "Mom-in -Chief" a reference to wanting to get her children acclimated to life in the spotlight and the White House. An article in the Times blasted her for not carrying the feminist flag far enough for women in this country. Last year she was scrutinized for wearing shorts, and vacationing in Paris. She was harangued for planting a vegetable garden and not wearing a dress and heels while she planted. She was hurled to the wolves for buying an expensive pair of sneakers, (with the headline, "First Lady buys sneakers while Americans don't have jobs") This year it's Espanol-gate.

It astounds me that declared feminists like Ms. Dowd would find this a topic worthy of mention. That they would actually declare that Mrs. Obama doesn't respect the President and as a result doesn't respect America, because of a jaunt to Spain. Where is the support for the FLOTUS? Doesn't she garner that respect just because she is the First Lady.

As I read the column, I could have sworn I heard Tammy Wynette singing, "Stand by your Man"

Give him two arms to cling to
And something warm to come to
when nights are cold and lonely

Stand by your man
And show the world you love him
Keep giving all the love you can
Stand by your man

Do I want my First Lady to be submissive to her husband and her country? Do I want her to abandon herself for 4-8 years and sacrifice her family to the fire that is America? Not me (and if polls on Mrs. Obama are correct most women don't want her to do that either). But the bruhaha over Mrs. Obama going to Spain makes me think that this is about a woman of color making decisions that are not predicated on the opinion of her husband or anyone else for that matter? Is this just fear of a smart black woman who exerts her own brand of power?

Maybe the real problem is that White feminists and those that hold white privilege as sacrosanct have a hard time with a woman of color who just doesn't care what anyone thinks.

Too bad....Mrs. Obama can definitely teach America a thing or two about what it is to be a Woman.

Essence and the Publishing Industry

So Essence Magazine has hired a white woman to be the Fashion Director. I, like a lot of black women am upset about this. So much so that I've objectified Elliana Placas by just calling her a white woman and moving on with whatever criticism of Essence I've felt like making. But the hiring of Ms. Placas is just part of the problem, the other problem is the dearth of Black women in powerful positions in publishing.

See...no matter who the Fashion Director is at Essence, if there's no editor, or editorial director to shape her sensibility there will be no African American aesthetic. Fashion Directors may put out ideas, but editors are the ones who put their visions into words. So at Essence, maybe this won't be as big a problem, but let's think about other magazines. Look at Vogue, even though Andre Talley was there (he's now a contributing editor), there was no editor or director to push his aesthetic and therefore introduce a fashion sense that had women of color as part of the overall ideology. Welcome to publishing....

Publishing is tricky. Career ascendancy is based on an internship system. While publishing may have changed in some ways, getting on to a career track in publishing has not. Internships start for many in college in their freshman years. Most are not paid. So many African American college students don't see the use in applying, and many are not steered in that direction by their career offices even if they are interested, (I was interested, and I was not steered in that direction). Once you're in the business, many assistants seem to find their "expert trainer" in their boss. Their boss introduces them to everyone, a huge email is sent to everyone heralding their accolades and after a year they are moved to the next step in their career track.

Well, let's just say that doesn't happen so easily for black women in publishing. The first problem is finding that "expert trainer."When I started my job, there were five production editors, two were black. No one wanted to train me. So I went to the black editors thinking I'd at least get tips on what to do. One was in her late 40s and another in her late 20s. The older more distinguished woman was wary of me the entire time and while she was very nice, never wanted to teach me anything outside of my position. "For fear", she told me one day, "of being labeled as the 'Black' production editor, and being denigrated amongst her peers." The younger production editor took me under her wing, and taught me how to produce books, without fear. Her philosophy was, "If I don't teach you, you'll be a production assistant forever!" Without her I wouldn't have advanced. And trust, I EARNED every advancement. I had bosses that put me through the fire, while I saw many of my white counterparts who had less experience and less ambition than I did be promoted. I had a boss tell me that my ambition was unsuitable for the business, because there weren't a lot people like me in the industry. He concluded that I'd never be a production director.

My story is not unique. This is a story that is told time, and time again at black women publishing seminars and forums. And while my story is in book publishing, black women in magazines and newspapers have similar (if not worse stories than mine). And trust me, this is only PART of my story. I could go on all day. But not having positions of power in the media only helps to reinforce the stereotypes that black women endure and suffer through on a daily basis. The problem with the hiring at Essence is that Essence was the one place where the racial indignities of publishing were not supposed to happen (yet I have a sneaking suspicion there are other indignities...but that's for another time). It was a haven of sorts, to see a product that was developed by African Americans and showed African Americans. Those opportunities are too few and far between.

The time now is for more internships that pay, for college advisors to see us as media material and for our community as a whole to inspire black women to write, create and express their unique perspective to the world. I also think it's high time for another magazine, that is owned and focused on us. While more black book publishers are great, the focus should also be on black owned book distributors. And of course the Internet is where you can do and say it all.

And as much pain as I've felt being a part of the media game, I'm still in it. I'm going to take it in a different direction in the next few years (combining media knowledge with the creation of social programs for African American women and young girls) but I'm still here. I'm definitely not as idealistic as I was 15 years ago, but I've survived, ready to pass on my knowledge to the next generation.